A Quick-Running Squash. 7

“What are you doing, my son, and what,
what is it you are riding?” asked his father.

“A quick-running squash, Papa,” gasped
Charles, who, although bruised and aching, re-
fused to give up the squash, and was still
pluckily keeping his seat. ‘Stop it, oh, do stop
it, Papa.”

His father knew that this could be no ordinary
squash, and saw that it evidently did not intend
to stop.

“JT will try to 4wrz it and make it go back,” he
said, so riding Nero nearer and nearer the squash,
he forced it up against a stone wall. But, instead
of going back, this extraordinary squash jumped
with scarcely a moment's hesitation over the
high wall, and went bobbing along into the rough
field beyond. But alas, before them was a broad
lake, and as he could not swim, back he was
forced to turn. Over the wall and back again
over the same road and toward the garden
whence he came, Charles still on his back and
Charles’s papa galloping at full speed behind.

The squash, however, must have had a good